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Need help moving from CDP to Mac Mini music server

I've decided to move try a music server solution because my listening habits have changed (maybe the ipod lifestyle has ruined me). So the time has come to sell my beloved Sony SCD-1 and I need some help figuring out how to implement a sonically comparable (or better) music server solution. My system is an Aesthetix Janus with a BAT VK-250 feeding a pair of Totem Forests. I'm currently thinking of getting a Mac Mini with a 500 GB HD and streaming ALAC to my airport express, then using the toslink out to feed a D/A (likley a Benchmark DAC-1) which would run balanced to my Aesthetix. I'd then use my powerbook to control the mac mini through bonjour (although I can also use my plasma as a display).

My first question is, can anyone familiar with using the mac mini server solution comment on the sound quality, especially in comparison to a quality CDP such as the Sony. I want the convenience of having my whole library be accessible, but I want to definitely don't want to sacrifice the sound quality to do it.

Secondly, I've read that the digital out on the mac mini has higher jitter and that using the usb to output digitial is better. Is it also preferable to utilize the usb method instead of using the Airport Express's optical out?

Thirdly, does anyone recommend a specific external hard drive to use with the mac mini? There seem to be a bunch out there.

Lastly, how do people feel about the Benchmark DAC-1 in this setup? I want to keep the whole budget under 3000 w/computer, external drive, DAC and wires, so any suggestions on DAC would be welcome (heard Stello makes one with a digital input).

Thank you so much in advance for your help,

Matt
mimberman
sfar's avatar
sfar
1,771 posts
 
Mimberman
I haven't experienced any interference from either my cordless phone or microwave. I don't talk on the phone a lot and when I do I usually turn down the sound if music is playing.

This morning I played some Satie through the system so that it would be easy to hear if anything was going on, called my office voice mail on the cordless phone and walked all around the system for a minute or so while I talked on the phone. It didn't create any interference that I could hear.

Same thing with the microwave. I turned it on for a couple of minutes while the music was playing and couldn't detect anything. It's only about 20 feet from my system, in the next room with an open doorway between.

Not saying there couldn't be inteference but I've never detected any in my setup.

I bought a glass optical cable, as well, from Captnstarstripe here on audiogon. It's a very nice cable for about the same price as a plastic one.
snipes
119 posts
 
I'll respond to either this thread or one of the ones I started a few months back once I've adequate time to evaluate the AE and the quality running it wireless. As for my audio-server, right now we're in beta mode if you will. I've ripped all my Pearl Jam CD's to my PC upstairs and share it via itunes. I access it through my wireless laptop downstairs where my stereo is and point the laptop to the AE . I haven't had one audio hiccup due to interference. If you think about the path the music has to travel to go from my laptop to the stereo that's pretty impressive on a 54mb/sec wireless setup. Edesilva explained the RAID 5 setup well enough, but let me just add one or two things in case you are still a bit confused. Using the Terra station as an example. If you have .7 TB usable, in his exmple using 4 disks, it's probably made up of 4x300GB drives. Again this is just a guess as there are many different RAID5 schemes used by the vendors, but the point is you don't make use of all of the space on all of the drives, that's by design. A simplistic way to think about it is take the total number of drives you have and subtract one. The remaining total is roughly what you will have usable under R5. Also, you mentioned using two drives and only filling up half of it. The way it works is you have a mirrored pair. It's called RAID 1 (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks). You have the full capacity of one drive, and the second drive is not directly accessable, the OS "mirrors" the data on the first to the second so if it dies, with a bit of work you can access everything by activating the second drive.
sfar's avatar
sfar
1,771 posts
 
I understand the advantages of RAID technology for redundancy but I'm not sure it's necessarily the best solution in this use, at least for most people. The advantage is that you're constantly backing up your data so that there's no chance you'll lose any of the work you've done in the interim between backups, which is a good thing, but there are disadvantages to having the redundant data housed in the same box as your primary data.

I think the way most people will set up a hard drive-based system is to spend a lot of time initially ripping a big pile of CD's, then ripping new stuff occasionally as it's bought. What you're interested in protecting is that big initial investment of time and it might make more sense to have two separate external drives, one as the primary and one that is brought out once a week or once a month to take the new stuff.

If you're really interested in protecting that investment, you're better off having the second drive in a different physical location and offline so that some kind of accident, a power surge or knocking the enclosure off a desktop doesn't take out everything. If you've ripped 10 CD's since the last time you took your backup drive out of the closet and done a backup, it's not a big deal since it takes less than five minutes to rip most discs.

RAID is cool but it's a little more complicated and expensive. Like many of you, I'm entertained by complicated solutions but I think in this case simpler might be better.
snipes
119 posts
 
Sfar, There is no requirement for drives configured in any type of RAID configuration to be housed in the same enclosure. There might be limitations based on what device is handling the RAID setup (i.e. the controller in the external storage).

Multiple enclosures, multiple paths to the data, etc. are all just additional layers of protection. In the end the goal is to eliminate as many single points of failure as possible/makes sense. Having two seperate disks or enclosures and synching them up manually via a copy or something similar may make sense for some, but setting up a simple RAID 1 or RAID 5 device isn't rocket science, it just takes a little research that anyone on this site can handle with a bit of investigation. Again the end goal is not to lose all of your hard work, whichever method one uses, that method should be good enough. Personally, I'll probably buy 2 internal drives and mirror them with the OS, that will be good enough for me. I'm confidant enough if one drive fails I can get at the data on the second easily enough.
Personally I think the biggest gain in audio quality in this entire setup is going to be the way the data gets from the source componant to the DAC. I don't think the traditional optical and digital coax type of connections will be the way to go once PC based audio really takes off in the high end. Where / how it's stored as well as how it gets there won't be as important as that "last leg" to the DAC. Just my opinion of course.
snipes
119 posts
 
I forgot to add one thing. One benefit of manually copying the data as Sfar suggests over using an automatically mirrored pair of disks, is if you accidentally delete what is on the active disk, guess what, your mirror is going to remove it as well. That might be reason enough for some to stick with the old manual method.
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